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Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Another New Jersey Corruption Sweep!

I am unable to post this essay at this time at my msn group, due to hackers and other obstructions. The first posted version of this essay at "Critique" was altered. I cannot print items today. March 28, 2007 at 11:49 A.M.

I will try again to post this essay, both at "Critique" and at my blogs. These obstructions are content-based censorship efforts in violation of fundamental First Amendment rights and federal criminal laws prohibiting obstruction and violation of civil rights. I believe that such actions emanate from the corridors of power in New Jersey.

Richard G. Jones, "14 City Employees in Paterson Are Charged in Corruption Sweep," in The New York Times, March 27, 2007, at p. B1.

"NEWARK, March 26 -- one bribe was made in exchange for dismissing the complaints of a distressed tenant against a landlord. A second was to ensure a timely lead paint inspection. Another was submitted for the most basic of needs: to keep water services from being shut off."

"Those were among the allegations made by federal prosecutors on Monday as they charged 14 people in a wide-ranging public corruption scheme involving Paterson city workers, including employees of its Housing Authority, and manipulation of the federal section 8 program providing rent subsidies for the poor."

"The charges, a result of a 14-month investigation by the United States attorney for New Jersey, outlined an extensive street-level operation in which officials solicited and accepted bribes for a range of favors -- from steering tenants to landlords to expediting the city's occupancy permit process."

"According to a criminal complaint in the case, Benny Ramos, a former deputy director of the city's section 8 program admitted to investigators that he had accepted as much as $100,000 in bribes during the past 10 years."

"For the United States attorney's office in New Jersey, whose investigations have led to the arrest of more than 100 officials" -- closer to 200! -- "for public corruption in the past five years, the Paterson case represents a different kind of prosecution."

"Its targets were not public figures with household names, like John A. Lynch, the former president of the New Jersey Senate, or James W. Treffinger, the former Essex County executive, both of whom were convicted of corruption. [An on-going federal grand jury investigation into the activities of Senator Robert "Bob" Menendez has yet to be resolved.] And the largest [single] figure cited in the complaint was just under $7,000."

The total number and sum of bribes involved in all matters were not listed. My estimate is that, even in poor neighborhoods, bribes for public officials, including judges, in New Jersey amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Public "service" in the Garden State is "nice work if you can get it."

"But Christopher J. Christie, the United States attorney, said that his 'office was not swayed by the size of the catch' and that the case represented 'a pervasive culture of corruption throughout the state where even low-level players often expect something extra for performing routine duties.' ... "

Mr. Christie was quoted at a press conference saying:

"... 'I don't come here today to tell all of you that we have broken a high level major public official case,' Mr. Christie said ... 'But this is the kind of public official case that really affects the daily lives of people in New Jersey.' "

"He said that those charged were 'people who every day are shaking down folks in order to get the routine functions of government done -- things that should be done every day without much incident.' "

"When we have sat up here and talked about the culture of corruption in New Jersey, we're not just talking about people like John Lynch and Jim Treffinger,' Mr. Christie said. 'We're talking about people like Benny Ramos. We're talking about people in the lowest levels of government who exist in a governmental culture that gives them the sense that this kind of conduct is permissible.' ..."

That culture of corruption is probably more pervasive in Hudson and other urban counties than Paterson. Statewide, DMV and other state-affiliated and governmental agencies (possibly including the A.G. and the notoriously corrupt OAE), are typically as loathsome, or more so, as these city agencies in Paterson. Some of the moneys collected in this manner must "flow up" -- leaving a slimy residue among judges and legal officials -- who are part of the "organization" that runs so much of the state behind the scenes. Ethics? In New Jersey? Nah ...

Many New Jersey officials are on the take; many more are subject to influence by "made men" of the Democrat political organization that calls the shots behind the scenes in a setting that reeks of twenties-style Chicago gangsterdom. To hear the same people whining about African-American "criminals" in the inner cities, who are like Bible-wielding mormons compared the Jersey political mob, is sickening.

Jersey's political whores -- some of whom are running courtrooms -- steal billions, are involved in child porn, corruption and bribery, wielding political and legal power behind the scenes in a system where secrecy renders everything a "signal" or sign for something else. No wonder they are obstructing my writings. They prefer the darkness, like vampires and IRS agents. Overlapping categories? Perhaps.

Some of this must be traced to the "incompetence" and continuing "dereliction of duty" of New Jersey's former and current Supreme Court "justices" -- who are usually out on the town on your tab, when not posing for portraits on horseback:

"Hey, you got the widgets? 2, 000 widgets and ya get da permit. Wadda-ya-gonna-do? ... That's life in Jersey. He-he-he."

This is the sort of thing one hears from public officials in New Jersey, some in judicial robes.

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About Me

I am the author of: "Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Freedom" (2004) and "Why I am Not an Ethical Relativist and Other Essays 2000-2006" (2006), both SHOULD BE available at: http://www.lulu.com/JuanG, and from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and free download on-line. In France, see Amazon, Fr. and in the UK, Blackwell.com. I thank however many people really view this profile. Efforts to destroy these essays are always expected. My image-posting feature may be blocked or destroyed by hackers.